Lord of the Flies, Piggy
If Only They’d Listened to Piggy Throughout the novel Piggy’s character is used to represent the intellectual side of man and act almost like an adult figure to the boys. There are many things that he does and that Golding says to support this. Three things come to mind that represent his place in the novel; he is a clear thinker, his appearance, and his symbolic losses throughout the book. Right off the beginning we see evidence of Piggy’s thinking ability. He realizes the boys’ situation and is thinking about how they are going to survive. He says “We got to find the others, we got to do something.” We then see indication of his intelligence, he says, “A conch…he used to blow it… he kind of spat… you blew from down here.” Only a bright person would know the name of a rare shell and how to blow it to make a noise. Further on at the end of chapter two Piggy compares the fire on the mountain to the fires of hell. It almost like he can “see” what is going to happen to the kids. Also he says “acting like a crowd of kids” as if was the adult on the island trying to help the “kids”. More proof of his clear thinking is the fact that Ralph relies on Piggy’s good advice to succeed. Without Piggy, Ralph would be lost. As the story progresses we see the boys drift apart however we see Piggy try to retain order as an adult might. When there is going to be a fight he says, “Come away. There’s going to be trouble. And we’ve had our meat.” He realizes the intensity of the situation and tries to stop any altercation. The boys continue to drift apart but Ralph and Piggy continue to be friends. In particularly, after the killing of Simon, Piggy tries as best as he can to support Ralph although he realizes they were a party to the violent death. He says, “You stop it. What good are you doing talking like that.”